Nigerian parlament has finally made its decision for the acquisition of the new presidential aircraft. Positive.
5.5 billions nayra (48.71 mln US$).
Since his inauguration in May 1999 , Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has made 53 foreign trips (I guess this is the biggest money spending chapter in the country's budget ).
What airplane you think he will buy. He has 50 millions. I don't think he will go for a Gulfstream or Learjet.
BBJ or A319CJ.

Nigeria and Russia have signed a lot of agreements to do with oil, aviation and other issues, and if the Russian's do this right, they have a prime opportunity to snag such a deal. Just a shame they didn't seize on this opportunity whilst Obasanjo was in Moscow, only recently.

More than half of the country is in poverty, in spite of Nigeria being one of the worlds' biggest oil exporters, and this guy wants to buy himself a nice new BBJ (or something bigger). He should be happy with a KingAir and earn the rest.

And you shouldn't either. There's no such thing as an A340-400, last I heard.

Parra,

There are ways of getting the money back, which involves proving that the money was stolen. A number of countries have done so in the past. Yes, it's time consuming, but you can't expect the Swiss to maintain their reputation for sure banking if they gave away your fortune at the first sight of an accusation.

The Nigerians shouldn't have let him steal the money in the first place anyway.

In any case, that's hardly an excuse. Nigeria could have been as rich as South Africa, if not more, had their corruption not siphoned off everything.

This plane is a good example. It is not a productive asset, and costs the same as the average annual salaries of 50,000 Nigerians.

Every year Air International Magazine puts out listings of all of the world's Air Forces, their squadrons, equipment, etc.

It's funny...and kinda pathetic....that more often than not some of the poorest countries in the world are equipped with large VIP air wings with huge jetliners for their leaders.

And its' not just poor countries....The New Yorker magazine reported in 1999 about the grumblings in Brunei over the astronomical sums of money the Sultan and his immeadiate family were blowing through....including the purchase of the ultimate VIP transport....a fresh off-the-line 747-400.(Which has since been traded in for an A340 if I'm not mistaken).

Well, Nigeria holds prestigeous rank of being #1 on list of most corrupted countries in the world.

Did anyone had a chance to read a 1999 Time article about Nigeria's Y2K solution? They didn't need one, because state of chaos is normal in their society. Nothing runs on time, there is virutally no automation, and no one expects any quality output.

There is little wonder why countries under dictatorships have starving masses, virtually no human rights, poor state of healthcare, while state of the art huge VIP jets, expensive special edition vehicles and other million dollar gadgets.

Has anyone seen the "fly on the wall" airport documentry about Lagos Airport on the Discovery Wings Channel? If the rest of the country is run along similar lines to the way the airport is run, then in my opinion some of the remarks made above about Nigeria are not too far off the mark.

"It's a shame that nobody has got anything good to say about Nigeria. Doesn't anyone realise that Nigeria is changing rapidly for the better?"

I know a lot of Nigerians and I´m quite close to the theme. Nigeria is changing for the better, that´s true, but to say "rapidly" is too much said. Corruption is - and will - still be a major factor of every business done with that country for years to come. That "worm" has gone too deep into the society over there and the difference between rich and poor is so great that I don´t believe in a rapid change unfortunately.
Of course this has to be said about many other (and not only) African states.

Thank you for the reference, Mls515; the account is chilling to say the least. True, Nigeria has a fascinating cultural and ethnic diversity, and its artistic and ethnological heritage is well worth studying, and I applaud the American student for his interest. However, I am sure the Nigerian student would find many uses for the $450 his US counterpart wants to spend on a native drum - the $450 is probably close to what the average Nigerian earns in a year. With all the misery, human rights violations, and abject socioeconomic inequity in Nigeria, I feel that matters such as what kind of aircraft the head of state should purchase with his stolen money are, at best, trivial.

Daniel

The aeroplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Onion Point/Counterpoint article is somewhat suspicious to my mind. Bitek Okoye obviously doesn't live in Lagos otherwise he'd know that there are no more executions on Bar Beach in Victoria Island - and there haven't been any such executions there for at least 15 years.

Armed robbers are shot at Kirikiri prison; the rest are hung!

25 Greg
: The Onion is an online parody of current topics. It's not meant to be any more serious than Mad TV or SNL... The fact that anyone would think the arti

26 Mls515
: LOL!!!!!!!!!! I never thought anyone would take the article serious! Yes the Onion is a joke! It's making fun of idealistic intellectual wannabe colle